When a professional sports team is on a long losing streak, the owner fires the manager and brings in a new one. However, that does not guarantee a better team, as the Chicago Cubs prove century after century. But at least the owner did something!

That’s the situation we have with the health care system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Lawmakers from both parties have been calling for President Barack Obama to fire retired four-star general Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, over a mushrooming scandal of long delays for veterans seeking care, leading to veterans dying on the waiting list. Some facilities were keeping phony lists to lie about the delays.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Channahon, called for Shinseki’s head last Sunday on Meet the Press. Thursday on the House floor, U.S. Rep. David Scott, D-Georgia, said “The first person we need to fire is Shinseki himself. The buck stops at the top. Here are the facts, 5,600 veterans are committing suicide every year on his watch; in my own (VA) hospital in Atlanta, four soldiers committed suicide in the hospital, and the VA inspector general laid the blame at the foot of the VA administration for the death of these soldiers.”

The president acts as if he’s not concerned, telling a reporter last Wednesday that “I am going to make sure there is accountability throughout the system after I get the full report.” Shinseki says he won’t quit and will double down to root out corruption and incompetence.

This is a lackluster response to a problem that goes back decades:

“In 2001, the General Accounting Office issued a report warning that wait times for medical services at VA clinics were excessive — and dangerous,” says The New Republic. In 2008, candidate Obama called VA delays “an outrage.”

Besides an increased demand for service as the by-product of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, “Antiquated, sclerotic bureaucracies are also part of the story. Veterans who wish to use VA health services must first apply. They also must get determinations about what kinds of disabilities they have — and how they got them.

“Those determinations are important: Veterans who lost limbs in battle, for example, get priority for services over those who served stateside without injury. The application files are still on paper, creating a huge backlog. The process also inflates wait times for actual medical services, since the disability determinations frequently require tests and checkups at VA medical facilities,” the New Republic said.

The delays are inexcusable, and taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth. We pay $153 billion a year for the Department of Veterans Affairs, a threefold increase since 2001, a Time magazine analysis says. The department has 300,000 employees and hundreds of VA hospitals and clinics throughout the country, treating 230,000 people a day.

And yet with all that money the department can’t seem to get its act together. So instead of firing the manager, why not disband the team, tear down the stadium and sever the broadcast rights?

It just makes more sense to issue veterans a health care insurance card they could use for the same doctors and hospitals civilians use. That way, vets could choose their doctors, hospitals and clinics.

Waiting times would end because they’d get the card with their discharge papers. Their medical providers would send veterans’ bills to the government instead of an insurance company.

The government’s goal is to care for veterans. Congress and the president should do it the most efficient way. A Veterans Health Care Card is that way.

Memorial Day observance

Monday is Memorial Day, when we honor the men and women who didn’t get to become veterans because they died in battle protecting our nation while in uniform. I urge you to attend a Memorial Day service to pay your respects to our fallen warriors. There are many services; I like to go to the oldest one in the area, dating from 1870.

It’s the 144th annual Memorial Day service at Kishwaukee Cemetery, just south of Rockford on Kishwaukee Road, about 5 minutes south of Chicago Rockford International Airport. The cemetery was founded in 1845 and contains the remains of soldiers of the Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean War.

The service starts at 10 a.m., and if it rains, they just move inside to the adjacent Kishwaukee Community Evangelical Presbyterian Church. This year’s speaker is Winnebago County Board member David Kelley.